Friday, September 28, 2012

A man who has been on death row for 15 years for the rape and murder of his 14-year-old step cousin was exonerated with the help of DNA evidence on Friday, according to the Innocence Project. He is the 300th person to be released due to this type of evidence.

He was convicted on the basis of a false confession. And it took years of volunteer effort on the part of top flight forensic scientists to prove he didn't. It also took a DA who was willing to look at the evidence and act, which is not always the case.

We don't know how many innocent people have been executed or how many more will be. But every exoneration like this proves that we are employing a barbaric form of punishment that quite easily ensnares the innocent as well as the guilty. It's a moral travesty.